


Love Medley

by ikeracity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Erik Has Feelings, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Roommates, Smitten Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik have been friends and roommates for two years. They've also, coincidentally, been in love with each other for two years. Neither of them has ever had the courage to admit it to the other, but Erik's new friendship with Magda and an untimely accident forces them to confront their feelings once and for all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Medley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Black_Betty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Betty/gifts).



> Based on a combination of these two prompts: 
> 
> "Erik and Charles are roommates who are in love with one another and pining because they don't know their feelings are mutual. Misunderstandings and pining and jealousy and eventual romantic resolution and declarations of love! (if possible hehehe)"
> 
> and
> 
> "Something happens that causes Charles' telepathy to flare up. He can't touch anyone for a long time (days? Weeks?) because the physical contact makes it much, much worse. Because he's typically a very tactile person, he suffers in isolation and feels disoriented and alienated from Erik and others. Touch-starved Charles and some h/c when it's all over? Maaaaaybe?"
> 
> Gracias to *** for the quick beta :) All remaining mistakes are mine.

Late Thursday afternoon, Erik came home from soccer to find Hank in the kitchen drinking the last of the orange juice. He couldn’t even be grumpy about that because if Hank was here, that meant Charles was here as well. They hadn’t seen each other all week, and Charles was, as usual, terrible at answering his texts.

“Hey,” he said. Hank startled violently and whipped around, nearly slopping the glass of orange juice down the front of his shirt. Erik rolled his eyes. The kid was so fucking jumpy around everyone in this house except for Charles; it was as if he thought upperclassmen skinned freshmen and had them for dinner.

“Um, hi.” Hank stood awkwardly by the fridge for another moment before nodding at the doorway. “Sorry, I’ll just—get out of your way.”  

“Where’s Charles?” Erik asked as he went to fetch a glass of water.

“Upstairs.”

“In his room?”

“Yeah.”

If Hank was over, Charles was probably deeply engrossed in whatever research they were currently doing together. He wouldn’t want to be disturbed. Erik drained his glass in three gulps and stuck it in the sink. “Tell Charles to text me back whenever he has a minute,” he told Hank before he headed to his own room for a shower.

After he’d scrubbed the dirt and sweat from his hair and skin, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, flopped down into his desk chair, and turned on his laptop. Two email notifications flashed at him: one from his thesis advisor and one from his mother. Ignoring the first, he clicked on the second and came face-to-face with a giant, panting, gray mastiff. The caption read, “Meet Milo, my new foster!!! He’ll be spending the holidays with us :). Can’t wait until you’re home, schatz. xoxo.”

He huffed a laugh. Mama had just gotten her first foster adopted two days ago and already she had another one. Apparently rescuing dogs was going to be her new hobby, after learning French and knitting shawls for charity and reading every biography on Albert Einstein that she could get her hands on. Shaking his head fondly, Erik sent back, “Hi Milo. Can’t wait to see you either, Mama. xoxo.” Then he shut his laptop, dug his Mutant Law textbook out of his backpack, and leaned his chair back on its hind legs, laying the book across his lap.

Once he’d finished the chapter they’d be discussing in class tomorrow, he got up from his desk, stretched until his spine popped pleasantly, and wandered out into the living room. Kitty was sprawled on the couch channel surfing, one hand on the remote, the other rustling around in a bag of Doritos. When he walked in, she glanced up and said, “Hey. The bathroom downstairs is out of toilet paper.”

“I bought toilet paper last week,” he replied, shoving at her feet until she bent her legs to give him room to sit down on the edge of the couch. When he held out his hand expectantly, she tilted the bag so he could snag a chip. “It’s Azazel’s turn.”

“He says he got toilet paper two weeks ago, and I did it the week before. So it’s Charles’s turn.”

Erik sighed. For the last month or so, Charles had completely buried himself in his lab work, which meant the chances of him doing any chores or buying any house necessities was essentially zero, and all of them knew it. None of them had said anything because Charles had been terribly apologetic when he’d told them he’d be entering into a “critical phase” in his research and so they wouldn’t be seeing much of him in the next few weeks, and besides, this house was his father’s. Holding a grudge against their landlord’s son wasn’t in any of their best interests.

“I’ll just get it,” he said, propping his socked feet up on the coffee table. “He’ll owe me.”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “He always owes you. You should start a tab.”

“Believe me, I already have.”

They watched Judge Judy, yelled at how stupid the cases were, and then ordered pizza for dinner. They were halfway through the box of pepperoni when Erik felt a wave of hunger press briefly against him before vanishing, and then Charles came jumping down the stairs, his eyes bright with glee.

“Pizza!” he exclaimed. “How did you know that’s what I wanted for dinner?”

Kitty and Erik exchanged a glance. They’d both been craving pizza earlier, but judging by Charles’s delight, it had been _his_ craving they’d been feeling. “You totally owe me seventeen bucks,” Kitty complained as Charles grabbed a paper plate and dug in, scooping up two of the biggest pieces.

“For what?” Charles asked innocently. His hair was sticking up in the back; Erik had the urge to reach up to flatten it down, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t have done much good anyway: Charles just looked like a mess all around with his wrinkled Oxford t-shirt, his too-big sweatpants, the ink stains on his fingers, and the manic gleam in his eyes. He’d gotten into way too much caffeine again, it looked like. Erik envisioned the crash ahead of him and winced in sympathy.

“Hello, Erik,” Charles said, perching on the couch arm beside him. “I feel like we haven’t spoken in ages.”

“I’ve texted you like, ten times,” Erik replied, allowing some of his annoyance to leak into his tone.

Charles was, as usual, utterly unruffled in the face of his irritation. “Hmm? About what?”

“Well it’s too late _now_.” He’d sent a couple asking if Charles wanted to join him, Azazel, and Kitty for a movie night, another inviting Charles to a house party hosted by some guy Azazel knew, and the last few asking for some proof of life if Charles was in fact still alive. He’d only been mildly concerned as the silence had stretched on; after living together for nearly two years now, he was used to Charles disappearing for weeks on end when he dove too deep into his research. His outrageously busy phases always ended eventually, and then Erik would have his best friend back. Until then…well. Patience was usually the best strategy.

“Where’s Hank?” he asked. “Too scared to come down for dinner?”

“He’s only intimidated because you and Azazel are so mean to him,” Charles harrumphed. “Anyway, he left half an hour ago. He had other homework to do.”

“He’s always doing homework,” Kitty said. “Doesn’t he ever do anything fun?”

“I don’t know. I’m his lab supervisor, not his friend.”

Erik snorted. “You’re everybody’s friend.” As far as Erik was concerned, the only people who disliked Charles were homophobic, mutantphobic, an idiot, or some combination of all three. Charles made a good impression on _everyone_. Hank practically worshipped him.

“Well, all right, we’re essentially friends,” Charles conceded. “But I have no idea what he does for fun, unless we count lab work.”

Erik elbowed him in the thigh, nearly knocking him off the couch arm. “Only you would count lab work as fun.”  

“Says the guy who does puzzles in his spare time. _Puzzles_.”

“Puzzles are fun,” Erik said defensively.

Charles sniffed. “Puzzles are _boring_. You put it together and then you break it apart and put it back in the box so you can do it again some other time. What’s the point?”

“The point is, you have the attention span of a fruit fly.”

“If that were true, I doubt I would’ve made it two weeks in college. And yet—” Charles pointed to his t-shirt. “Which of us here has a degree? Oh right, it’s me.”

Erik shoved at him again. “Gloat while you can. Next spring you won’t be able to hold that over my head anymore.”

“Next spring I’ll hopefully be done with my thesis.” Charles gave him a smug grin. “Then I’ll hold my Ph.D. over your head instead.”

“You are such a little shit,” Erik muttered, and Charles just laughed and leaned against him fondly.

The next night, Azazel sent details of a house party to their roommates group text. Kitty sent back, “eww that’s chase landry’s place. he’s an asshole,” to which Azazel replied, “he has a beer pong table with neon lights,” which of course won Kitty over because she was sucker for beer pong (mostly because she never got tired of taking money from boys stupid enough to bet on her to lose). Erik considered his schedule and then rolled out of bed to go knock on Charles’s door.

“Mm?” came the distracted reply.

Erik cracked the door. Charles was sitting on the floor contemplating an array of papers spread all around him, a red marker clutched in one hand, a small whiteboard perched on his knee. He was definitely not going out tonight, but Erik said anyway, “We’re going to a party tonight. Want to come?”

Charles smiled briefly up at him and then returned his attention to his papers. “No, I’m good, thanks. I’m in the middle of something.”

“I see that,” Erik said, eyeing the mess of Charles’s room. It smelled like dry erase board markers, ramen, and dirty laundry. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if Charles had ever grown out of having a maid clean up after him. Perks of growing up in a fucking mansion. “Don’t forget to take a break to eat something and drink some water. You know, to keep yourself alive.”

Charles waved him off. “I’m fine. Have fun tonight.”

“Sure.”

The house wasn’t hard to find: all Erik had to do was follow the deafening dance music, the wild hooting of drunk frat boys, and the sharp smell of booze. As he came up the front walkway, a blond girl stumbled down the porch steps and vomited into the grass. Erik wrinkled his nose. This wasn’t really his kind of party—it was more of Charles’s really, when Charles was in the mood—but Erik figured he’d drop in for a couple of free beers before jetting back out. He had an essay due next week anyway, so he didn’t plan on staying long.

There must have been twenty kids crammed into the front hallway alone. Erik shoved his way through them, peering through the shadowy darkness for Azazel. Some guy ground up on him as he passed, clearly too drunk to care that he was feeling up a stranger, and Erik knocked him off, rolling his eyes. Maybe even the free booze wouldn’t be worth it.  

 _Erik_.

He turned at the beckons and found Emma standing in a narrow kitchen to his left, lit only by a sluggish green lava lamp perched on the counter. It was the only place in sight not stuffed full of people: only Scott Summers leaned against the counter beside her, drinking a Coors light.

Erik pushed his way through the crowd toward them. The kitchen at least smelled less strongly of body odor and sweat, which was probably why Emma had taken refuge here. “Hey,” Erik said, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “This where the alcohol is?”

Emma nodded elegantly toward the open cooler in the corner, a glass of what looked like vodka cradled in her hand. As usual, she was probably the most stunning girl in the whole place, casually gorgeous in a pristine white dress and a silk cardigan, with a glittering silver necklace resting on her collarbones. She always looked more fit for a runway than for business school, and Erik wondered constantly what the hell she saw in Scott. The Summers kid was scrawny and only just barely handsome and, most importantly, annoying as fuck. He was so far out of Emma’s league it was a literal miracle they had ever exchanged words, let alone phone numbers.

“Keep thinking about Scott like that and I’ll make you think you’re a chipmunk for the rest of the night,” Emma drawled.

Erik snorted. “It’s the truth. And don’t read my mind.”

He fished a Shiner Bock out of the cooler and popped the cap off with his powers. Scott nodded to him in greeting, his eyes hidden behind the red of his glasses. Erik grunted half a greeting to him and then leaned up against the counter next to Emma, nodding at the empty space in the kitchen. “Your doing, I assume?”

 _This place gives me a headache_ , Emma said disdainfully. _I wanted some space._

Erik shot a pointed look at the living room, which was absolutely trashed. _Why are you even here in the first place?_ Emma normally frequented smaller, more manageable parties.

“Scott wanted to come,” she said aloud, linking her arm through his.

“Hmm?” Scott glanced at Emma, then nodded. “Oh yeah, Chase Landry’s a friend. I promised him we’d drop by for a little while.” He looked around for a moment, a crinkle furrowing his brow. “Where’s Charles?”

“Home.” Erik took a long swallow of his beer. “He’s working.”

Scott clapped Erik on the shoulder. “Tell him the MMP misses him. Jean really misses him.”

The sharp pang of jealousy that shot through Erik was entirely unwarranted. Jean was a good person, and whatever was going on between her and Charles was their business, not Erik’s. He really didn’t want to hear about it.

Shrugging off Scott’s hand, he said, “I’ll tell him,” and took a huge swallow of his beer.

Azazel found him a few minutes later and dragged him into one of the bedrooms where a beer pong tournament was in process. Kitty was already there, looking tiny and triumphant in the center of a crowd of football players. Ping pong ball in one hand, she closed one eye, took a long moment to aim, and let the ball fly. It soared in a graceful arc and plunked perfectly into the remaining beer cup on the other side of the table, hardly even splashing the beer. Instantly her half of the room erupted in cheers as her opponent glared at her across the table, his face flushed with sweat and alcohol.

“Making friends, I see,” Erik remarked.

Kitty turned and beamed at him. “Hey, you! Wanna try me?”

Erik shook his head. “I’m not that stupid.”

“Luckily,” she said happily, and low enough so only he and Azazel could hear, “lots of people here are.”

Erik laughed. No doubt she’d already hustled several boys out of their money. There was an assortment of liquor on the dresser in the corner of the room, so Erik poured himself a vodka coke and settled in to watch.

At some point during the night, he realized that he was a lot drunker than he’d meant to be, but at that point, it was pretty much too late. Everything blurred into a whirl of color and sound—Kitty was laughing and Azazel was getting cozy with a girl in the corner, and Emma was rolling her eyes and telling him something unintelligible, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up face-down on a musty old couch, his head pounding and someone’s hands on him.

“N—no,” he slurred, batting at them weakly.

“Erik? Are you awake?”

Slowly, painfully, he cracked his eyes open. Thankfully it was dark in the room, but that made it difficult for him to make out the face of the girl kneeling beside him. After a long moment, he gave up and closed his eyes again. “Where am I?”

“Still at Chase Landry’s. I came out and saw you passed out on the couch. I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

Her voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Who…”

“It’s Magda. From Advanced Mutant Lit?”

“Oh…yeah.” He tried to recall a face, but all he could remember at that point was that she sat across from him in class and she was one of the few humans in the class that he could tolerate. “Um…”

“Do you need me to call someone to come get you?”

“Is…Azazel…?” He opened his eyes again and realized this time that everything was quiet. Was everyone gone? Had Azazel and Kitty _left_ him here?

“Uhh…” he said intelligently.

Whatever his face was doing, it made Magda laugh softly. “Okay, do you have your phone on you?”

He gestured vaguely to his jacket. When she slid her hand into the inside pocket, Erik said, “You’re really warm,” and leaned into her touch, smiling.

Magda laughed again and patted his face. “And you’re really drunk. What’s your passcode?”

“Uh…3498.”

She stood up, and after a few minutes, he heard: “Yeah, hi? My name’s Magda Eisenhardt. Are you Erik’s friend?...Okay, I was wondering if you could come get Erik….Yeah, he’s at Chase Landry’s. I can give you the address….Yeah, I don’t think he can walk on his own….Mhhm….Okay, thanks. See you.”

She came back and sat down by his head. “Your friend Charles is coming to get you.”

He perked up slightly. “Charles?”

“Yeah, I called a few numbers on your recent contacts, and he was the one who picked up.”

Good old Charles. Always dependable. “My roommate,” Erik mumbled into the couch. “Probably still up working. Probably a workaholic.” He wrinkled his nose. “Definitely a workaholic.” He turned his head and squinted up at Magda. “What’re you doing here?”

She smiled down at him in amusement. “Helping you get home without dying.”

“I mean…what time is it?”

“Almost four.”

“Why’re you still…” He waved his hand vaguely at the room.  

“Here, you mean?” Magda asked. “I’m staying the night. Chase is my boyfriend.”

Hoping the heaving feeling in his stomach would subside soon, Erik shifted onto his side and made a face. “You could do so much better than that asshole.”

Magda laughed. “ _That asshole_ is letting you crash on his couch. I’d be a little nicer to him.”

Erik pouted. “It’s true. You’re nice and smart and pretty, and he’s…” He scrunched up his nose. He didn’t know Chase Landry all that well, but what he _did_ know about the guy was enough to make Erik steer clear. Besides, Kitty hated him, and Kitty had good taste. Erik trusted Kitty’s taste.

He reached up and clumsily patted Magda’s knee. “You could do better.”

“Wow,” Magda said dryly. “Drunk, drooling, _and_ condescending—where’s your girlfriend? I can’t believe you’re not taken.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Erik said matter-of-factly. “I’m in love with someone.”

There was a long silence before Magda said, “See, now I could be really mean and ask you who it is because I don’t think you have any kind of brain-to-mouth filter right now. But I won’t because I’m nice.”

He patted her knee affectionately. “I like you. Mhhm. You can stay.”

“Charming.”

The world washed in and out for a while as he dozed fitfully, and the next thing he knew, Charles was saying, “Can you stand up or am I going to have to carry you?”  

He smiled fuzzily and reached out. “Charles!”

Charles heaved a sigh. “Dreadfully sorry about this. He’s a nuisance when he’s drunk.”

“He hasn’t done much,” said a female voice. Erik frowned until he remembered that Magda was there, that she was the one who had called Charles. She was nice, so she was all right. “Just talked.”

“I hope he didn’t say anything too terrible.”

“Not really. Just insulted my boyfriend—”

“Oh, par for course—”

“—and told me he was in love with someone.”

Erik could feel Charles go very still above him, but only for a moment—it was so fleeting that Erik didn’t think anything of it at all. “Oh,” Charles said. Then he put his hands under Erik’s arm and heaved him up. “Come on, up you get.”

Erik tried to cooperate, but all his movements seemed counterproductive, so he just remained still and let Charles get them in order. He ended up leaning against Charles, his arm around Charles’s shoulders. His legs were a bit unsteady underneath him, but he thought he could probably make the walk home. It wasn’t _that_ far.

After a long pause, Charles asked, “Did he say who?”  

Erik blinked blearily at him. “Who what?”

“Nothing,” Charles said gently. “Never mind. We’d better be going. Thank you for calling.”

“Of course.” Magda hovered at Erik’s elbow. “Do you need help?”

“No, I think I can handle it.”

Together they stumbled out the front door, and Erik called over his shoulder, “Thanks, Magda!” He craned his head and groggily as she waved back at him, and then Charles was tipping him into the back of a cab. He remembered leaning his head on Charles’s shoulder and Charles giving the driver directions. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

 

*

 

Azazel staggered in through the front door at eleven in the morning, his black hair sticking up in every direction, his eyes glossed over, and his shirt on backwards. Sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, Charles raised an eyebrow at him and asked, “Walk of shame?”

“I need water,” Azazel muttered, weaving unsteadily toward the fridge.

Even just looking at him, Charles could feel his skull-splitting headache. He got up and pushed Azazel down into a chair at the kitchen table. “I’ll get it. Don’t want you falling over and cracking your head open on the counter, do we?”

“That might be nice,” Azazel moaned. “Can you do that thing where you—” He gestured at his head.  

“Put you to sleep? Once you get to bed, yeah.” Charles slid him a glass of water and went to rummage in the cabinets for some Advil. They always kept some painkillers close at hand for occasions like these. “You know you left Erik at the party last night?”

“Yeah, I met a gorgeous girl.” Azazel gave him a loopy smile, his eyes rolling toward the back of his head. “You should’ve seen her, Charles. Blond hair, amazing curves—and _so_ bossy once we got our clothes off—”

Charles threw the Advil at his face. “What makes you think I’d ever want to hear about you getting laid? Gross. Drink that and go to bed. And take a shower when you wake up—you stink.”

Azazel fumbled with the bottle, struggling for a long minute before finally managing to pop the cap open. Pouring far too many pills into his hand, he said, “I’m hungry though. Is there any pizza left?”

“Honestly,” Charles harrumphed, digging the pizza box out of the fridge, “I ought to be paid for this.”

Ten minutes later, Erik wandered down the stairs, squinting at the light. He was endearingly rumpled, still wearing his clothes from last night, missing one sock, and his hair flat on one side and mussed on the other. He stopped at the counter and frowned unhappily at both of them. “I hate myself.”  

Charles hid a smile. “Azazel has Advil and cold pizza, if you want it.”

With a groan, Erik dropped into a seat at the table and reached for the Advil. “What the fuck happened? I want to die.”

His head on the table, Azazel nodded his agreement. Charles said, “You went and got hammered, your friend Magda called me, and I came and picked you up.”

“Magda?” Erik stared at him in confusion for a moment before recollection lit up his face. “Oh yeah. I remember that.”

If Charles had any self-control at all, he’d drop it at that. But he couldn’t resist asking, “Who is she? You’ve never mentioned her before.”

Grabbing a slice of pizza, Erik nodded. “A friend from my Advanced Mutant Lit class.”

“A mutant?”

“Human. One of the four in the class.”

“A friend,” Charles echoed skeptically. “You, friends with a human.” Had the world turned upside down when Charles hadn’t been looking?

Erik shrugged. “She’s all right. You should hear her in class—she actually has an informed opinion about things, unlike half the idiots there.”

Erik complimenting a human? So miracles really did happen. Shaking his head, Charles drank the rest of the milk in his bowl of cereal and turned toward the sink—then stopped, a thought striking him cold.

What if she was the one? The one Erik was in love with?

Unlikely—she was a human, and Erik would never fall in love with a human, not in a million years…But love wasn’t logical, was it? It was stupid and irrational, and it happened when you were least expecting it.

Charles would know.

He made himself walk the rest of the way to the sink and rinse out his bowl. Azazel was speaking again behind him, telling Erik about the girl he’d met last night, but Charles hardly heard him. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and his stomach roiled. Erik was in love with someone. Erik was, quite possibly, in love with this Magda girl, and Charles was so immediately, completely jealous that he had to stand at the sink with his back to them for a long moment before he was able to compose himself.

When he turned back around, Azazel was snoring on the table and Erik was staring miserably at the half-eaten pizza slice in his hand.

“Maybe you should go back to bed,” Charles suggested.

“Probably,” Erik agreed. He took a bite of pizza, chewed it, and then heaved a sigh. “I hope I didn’t embarrass myself with Magda last night.”

Charles’s heart twisted. “No,” he said as evenly as he could manage. “She said all you did was call her boyfriend an asshole.”

Erik snorted. “So all I did was tell the truth.”  

For a long moment, Charles considered adding, “ _And you said you were in love with someone_.” He could tease Erik about it, could wheedle a name out of him. On the one hand, it had to be better to know for sure than to be kept guessing. But he was afraid of knowing. Knowing meant there wouldn’t be any hope anymore.  

He forced a quick smile and said, “Well I’m going back upstairs. I have work to do. Try not to throw up anywhere that’s not the toilet or a trash can, all right?”

Erik waved in acquiescence, and Charles fled upstairs.

 

*

 

Things were…odd after the Landry party. Erik wasn’t sure if he was imagining things, but it seemed like Charles was suddenly standoffish and withdrawn. He replied to Erik’s texts less often than ever, and when they saw each other at the house, he would only stop to exchange pleasantries before running off again.

“Was it something I did?” Erik asked Kitty one evening as they sat on the couch watching Criminal Minds. “I mean, do you remember if I did anything?”

“I left way before you did,” she replied. “I only came to play some beer pong, and then Piotr called and asked if I wanted to go see a movie so I left. Pass the ice cream.”

He passed her the pint and the spoon, brow furrowed. “Has Charles seemed weird to you at all?”

Kitty licked the spoon and shrugged. “He’s fine with me. I barely see him anyway these days; he’s always working.”

Charles _was_ working harder than ever; he only made appearances at the house for a change of clothes or to catch a few hours of sleep. Part of it—most of it, probably—could be attributed to the end-of-semester crunch. But part of it, Erik thought, might be that Charles was throwing himself into his thesis work to avoid Erik. The notion made an uneasy feeling twist in Erik’s stomach.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kitty said. She stuck her cold feet underneath his thigh. “He’s probably just busy.”  

“Yeah.” If she hadn’t noticed anything, then maybe he _was_ imagining things. In any case, he wasn’t doing any good sitting around worrying about it. “I guess.”  

The one nice thing that came out of Landry’s party was Magda. The Monday afterwards, he sat down next to her in lit class and said, “Hey, thanks for Friday night.”

She looked him up and down and smirked. “Glad to see you survived.”

He grimaced. “Not unscathed. The hangover I had Saturday morning was _unbelievable_. But things probably would’ve been worse if you hadn’t called Charles to come get me.”

“I just did what any decent person would’ve done. I mean, if I was passed out a party, I would hope someone would find a way to get me home.”

“Yeah well, you didn’t have to.” Erik smiled at her. “Thanks.”

They got to talking after that, and Erik found out that she was Jewish, too, and that she was a journalism major and wanted to work for BBC after she graduated. She was taking Arabic this semester and trying to learn Hebrew online, though that wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d hoped.

“You should come over sometime,” Erik offered without really thinking about it. “Come over to my mom’s house in Brooklyn, I mean. My mother speaks fluent Hebrew, and she’d probably love to have a student.”

Magda gave him an appraising look. “Are you fluent?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Not at all.” His mama was always trying to get him to learn, but he was always busy with other things. He kept promising her he’d sit down and commit to learning it—someday. Maybe having another, more interested student would ease the pressure off of him, at least for a little bit.

“Maybe I could give her a call or email her?” Magda said, biting the end of her pen. “I just have some questions, nothing really major.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

They exchanged phone numbers, and Erik gave her his mother’s email and cell phone. He wasn’t really expecting anything to come from it, not immediately anyway, but the very next night, his email inbox chimed with a message from his mother.

 

> FROM: edie.lehnsherr@gmail.com
> 
> TO: erik.lehnsherr@gmail.com
> 
> SUBJECT: Magda???
> 
> Schatz, who is this lovely girl you gave my email to?? TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT HER!

Erik stared at it, then huffed a laugh and hit “reply.”

 

> FROM: erik.lehnsherr@gmail.com
> 
> TO: edie.lehnsherr@gmail.com
> 
> SUBJECT: re: Magda???
> 
> Just a friend from my advanced mutant lit class. She wants to be a journalist for BBC and she’s trying to learn Hebrew. I thought you could help. And don’t get your hopes up, she has a boyfriend.

His mother got her hopes up anyway, as she always did. From that moment on, she constantly mentioned Magda in her emails, sometimes just in passing, sometimes in detail. Through her, Erik learned that Magda had a schnauzer named Pickles, that Magda enjoyed ballroom dancing, that Magda had been to Israel four times, that Magda was just a _darling_ and so brilliant and funny and kind and _perfect_.

“I think my mom’s in love with you,” Erik told Magda one afternoon. They were sharing a table at the library studying for their Advanced Mutant Lit exam, both of them listless and drowsy even after two cups of Starbucks. “I think she emails you more than she emails me.”

“Probably,” Magda agreed serenely. She poked through the bag of Lays she’d gotten from the vending machine. “For the record, I’d totally marry your mom if she proposed.”

Erik made a face. “Ew. No. That would make me your son. No _way_.”

Magda laughed. “That could be fun actually. _Erik, do your homework. Erik, pick your shit up off the floor. Erik, give mommy a kiss.”_

He gave a full-body shudder. “No, don’t even joke about that. That’s actually horrifying.”

“Erik, darling,” she sing-songed, “come here and give mommy a kiss—”

She reached across the table toward him, and he jerked away, laughing. Not far enough though—he hit the back of his chair, and Magda grabbed his face between her hands, puckering up her lips and making a loud kissy sound. Groaning, he twisted out of her grip at the last moment, and they both leaned back in their seats, laughing.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he said, making a disgusted face at her.  

She smirked. “No promises.”

Shaking his head, Erik was about look back down at his notes when he spotted Charles passing a couple of tables away. He was walking away, backpack slung over one shoulder, but Erik shouted, “Hey, Charles!” and waved. Charles turned, spotted them, and paused for a moment before heading over.

“Hi,” he said, darting a glance at the both of them. “Studying?”

“Yeah, for mutant lit.” Erik eyed him. Charles’s face was flushed, and his smile seemed oddly strained. “You okay? You look a little sick.”

Charles scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.” He looked over at Magda and held out his hand. “I don’t think we were ever properly introduced. I’m Charles Xavier.”

Grinning—no doubt charmed by Charles’s accent and his formality, like most people were—she shook his hand. “Magda Eisenhardt. You’re Erik’s roommate, right?”

“That’s right.”

Her grin turned wicked. “So you must have some embarrassing stories about him, right?”

Erik snorted. “I’m never embarrassing.” When she shot him a skeptical look, Erik raised his eyebrow at Charles. “Tell her.”

Charles scoffed. “Erik, embarrassing? Never.”

Magda’s grin widened, and Erik sat back with a scowl. “Now you’re both making fun of me.”

“Only because we love you,” Magda said affectionately.

“Oh shut up,” Erik retorted. He glanced back at Charles and asked, “Are you studying? Want to join us?”

“Actually I was just leaving.” Charles backed up a step. “I’ll see you at home, Erik.”

Erik frowned and took a better look at him. He was definitely flushed, and the circles under his eyes seemed unhealthily dark. When was the last time he’d slept? Or eaten, for that matter? “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Charles assured him. “Good luck you two.”

Erik continued to watch him as he left, worried despite himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Charles take even just five minutes to sit down and breathe. Charles could be brilliant, but he could also be stupid, especially when he got caught up in his work. Sometimes he needed someone to just shove him into a chair and force him to eat something substantial and then take a three-hour nap.

“So Lifton,” Magda said, flipping a page in her notes. “What were the main themes she focused on again?”

He tore his gaze away from Charles’s retreating back and glanced back down at his notes. “Lifton? Umm…”  

He didn’t get home until two a.m. that night, and once he did, he collapsed straight into bed without even bothering to strip out of his clothes. The next day, he took his Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics exam, spent the whole afternoon and most of the night finishing up his essay for Mutant Law, and then slept for four hours before his Advanced Mutant Lit exam the next day. It turned out to be significantly easier than he’d anticipated, and he walked out feeling much lighter than he’d felt going in. Magda, who’d finished ten minutes before he had, was waiting for him in the hallway.

“We totally overstudied,” she said.

“Completely,” he agreed. “But at least it’s over now.”

“Yep, we’re free!” Magda grinned at him. “You want to get coffee or something? To celebrate?”

“Yeah, sure. I don’t have anything planned—” He was interrupted by the insistent buzz of his phone in his pocket. “Sorry, let me get this.”

Kitty’s name flashed across the screen. With a jolt of surprise, he saw that he’d missed six calls and two voicemail messages. Heart picking up, he stepped away and swiped to answer the call. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Erik, where are you?”

Kitty sounded like she’d been crying. His stomach clenched painfully. “I’m on campus, I just got out of my exam. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Charles—he was in a car accident and we’re in the ER—me and Azazel—”

Coldness prickled all over Erik’s skin. For a long moment, he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even breathe. His throat felt like it had been soldered shut—he couldn’t draw in a breath, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t move a muscle. All he could do was stand there dumbly, Kitty’s words looping over and over in his head: _it’s Charles—he was in a car accident._

Finally, he opened his mouth. His voice came out in a fractured whisper. “Is he okay?”

“I—I think so. I don’t know what happened, they just called me because I was one of his emergency contacts. I got Azazel and he got me to the ER as soon as he could. I haven’t seen him—they’re still with him I think, the doctors—”

They should have called Erik. Erik was Charles’s first emergency contact—he knew it because Charles was _his_ first emergency contact, the one they were supposed to call if anything happened. But of course he hadn’t gotten a call because he’d been taking an exam and his phone had been silenced, and oh god, Charles was in a car accident while Erik had been taking an exam. Charles was in a car accident, and Erik had been completely fucking _oblivious_ , writing about fucking Lifton and whether or not the dove was a purposeful motif in the first half of her novel or not.

“Erik?”

Numbly, he turned to look at Magda. He wasn’t sure what expression he was wearing, but she took one look at his face and said, “What do you need me to do?”

“I need to…” He gulped in a huge breath. “I need to go see Charles. I need to see Charles.”

The next few minutes were a blur. Eventually Magda took his phone from him, got details from Kitty, and then directed him out of the building. She hailed a cab, pushed him into the back, and twenty minutes later, they were walking into the ER of the hospital, Erik unsteady on his legs, Magda holding his arm firmly.

In the waiting room, Kitty spotted him first and rushed at him, her face blotchy and red. “He’s going to be fine,” she blurted out, grabbing him in a tight hug. “The doctors say he’s fine, just a sprained wrist and a concussion. It could have been so much worse, but he’s fine.”

Erik’s knees would have given out if Kitty hadn’t been holding onto him. He wasn’t sure which of them was shaking, or if both of them were, but he clutched her tightly to him, his heart galloping in his chest. “They said that? What the hell happened? Where is he? Can we see him?”

“Not yet.” She pulled back and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “He’s been sedated. They gave him some stuff for the pain and they want to keep him to run some tests to make sure his concussion isn’t too serious. But they said they’d send someone to get us when he’s awake.”

Charles was going to be okay. He was going to be _fine_. Erik had to sit down then. He staggered back into an empty chair by the wall and sank down into it. Magda followed him, taking the chair beside him and reaching over to take his hand. He squeezed her hand tightly, hanging onto it like a lifeline, glad she was here to anchor him.

They waited for an eternity. People came in and out of the ER, some of them crying, some of them bleeding, some of them screaming bloody murder. Erik ignored all of them, just sat staring at his knees, his heart still pounding too fast in his chest. Now that the initial relief had faded, the sharp horror of what had happened began to seep in. Charles had been in a car accident. Charles could have _died_. Erik might have lost him forever, and they’d never even—he’d never even said anything to Charles about how he felt, about how he wanted to know what Charles tasted like when he was laughing and how he thought Charles looked absolutely sexy in his rumpled t-shirts and his glasses, and how he never felt happier than when they watched a movie together on the couch and Charles leaned up against him and fell asleep in the middle of the movie, every time. He’d never said any of that, and Charles might have died not knowing it. The thought made Erik want to throw up.

Finally, _finally_ the doors opened and a doctor came out. “Are you all here for Charles Xavier?”  

Erik lifted his head, his breath seizing in his chest. It was Magda who said, “Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Kim,” the doctor said, smiling kindly. “Charles is stable now; we’ve moved him to an isolated room, and you can go in to see him in a moment. But first I have to warn you not to touch him.”

“Not to touch him?” Erik echoed blankly.

Tugging her stethoscope off her neck and tucking it into the pocket of her scrubs, the doctor nodded. “From what we’ve gathered from witnesses and from Charles himself, it seems like he suffered an attack of psionic overexposure, which is why he collapsed into the street, in the way of the oncoming car. Psionic overexposure is common in telepaths, especially young ones. Of course, we don’t often see telepaths as strong as Charles, but that just means that his case of psionic overexposure is much more severe than normal.”

Psionic overexposure. That sounded self-explanatory, but this had never happened to Charles before. Strong or not, Charles had impeccable control over his power. Confused, Erik shook his head. “What does that mean?”

“Well, psionic overexposure is when psionic input—thoughts, emotions, perceptions—overwhelms the recipient and causes disorientation, vertigo, and blackouts. Charles admitted to feeling stressed and overworked, which probably triggered the attack. Usually psionics recover relatively quickly, within a day or two, but in Charles’s case, the uncommon strength of his telepathy meant that the overload was much more powerful than normal. We believe the effects won’t be permanent, but he’ll need longer to recover.”

“How long?” Kitty asked, arms crossed.

Dr. Kim frowned. “We can’t be sure. I’ve never dealt with an Omega-level psionic before. But extrapolating from past cases, I would put his recovery anywhere between one to three weeks, perhaps a month at the most. During that time, it’s imperative that you don’t touch him. His mental shields are very fragile, and even a touch could overload him again.”

“Is he going to be okay going to work?” Erik asked. “He does his research at a lab on campus, so there will be plenty of people around him. Won’t that be dangerous?”

“He won’t be working,” Dr. Kim said firmly. “He’ll be on strict house arrest. He came in dehydrated, and he obviously hasn’t eaten in awhile, on top of everything else. He needs to get healthy again before he’ll be allowed to do any kind of work.”

Anger swelled up in Erik’s chest—of course Charles was dehydrated and underfed, the stupid little shit. He’d gotten hit by a car and ended up in the goddamned ER, all because he hadn’t stopped to fucking _take care of himself_. Erik was so furious for a second that he couldn’t see straight, and it was only when he heard the waiting room chairs starting to rattle ominously behind him that he unclenched his fist and forced himself to take a deep breath.

“We’ll make sure he rests,” he said darkly.

Dr. Kim nodded in approval. “Good. Wait here. I’ll have a nurse come out and take you to his room.”

 

*

 

Charles knew he was in trouble the moment Erik came in through the door. He’d known this was coming—Erik always scolded him for working far too hard for his own good and forgetting to eat or drink or take care of himself. Charles’s last thought before the car had struck him had actually been, _Erik’s going to kill me._ So it was hardly a surprise when Erik looked thunderous as he barged into Charles’s hospital room. Glaring murderously, he marched to the end of the bed and growled, “So you’re alive, against all odds.”

Charles winced. “Not _all_ odds, surely.” He’d hoped Erik would be at least a little teary-eyed and maybe cling to him a bit, but that seemed unlikely. “But thank you for worrying.”

“I’m not worried, I’m _mad_.” Erik ground his teeth together. “You passed out because you overworked yourself, and you got hit by a _car_.”  

“Technically, I passed out because of psionic overexposure,” Charles said weakly.

“Because you overworked yourself,” Erik snapped. “You _idiot_.”

It was fortunate that the doctors had put him on a power suppressant because Charles was sure the rage Erik was radiating at the moment would’ve given him a stress headache. Casting a despairing look at Kitty, who was hovering the doorway, Charles said, “A little sympathy here please?”

Coming closer, Kitty shook her head. “He’s right, you know.” She started to reach for the hand of his good arm, then pulled back. “You scared the shit out of us.”

Behind her, Azazel nodded. He looked as unsettled as Charles had ever seen him. “Don’t do that again.”

Looking between the three of them, Charles sank back into his pillow guiltily. “I’m sorry I worried you. I knew I was working too hard, but I figured it would be over soon. I meant to eat and sleep and drink water, but I just got caught up in the lab and I forgot. I didn’t mean for this to happen, I swear.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Erik said frostily. “But it happened anyway, didn’t it?”

“I know, I was stupid. It won’t happen again.”

“No,” Erik bit out, “it fucking won’t.”

There was something strange in his expression, something lurking behind all that anger. Suddenly Charles wished they were alone; he was sure that there was something Erik wanted to say that he didn’t want the others to hear. There were things Charles wanted to tell him in private as well, things like how as he’d been lying here in this hospital bed realizing how close he’d come to serious injury, he regretted not telling Erik how much he meant to Charles, how much he valued their friendship and how glad he was that they’d met. He regretted not telling Erik that even if Erik couldn’t love him back, Charles would always be there for him, as his most loyal friend.

But Kitty and Azazel were there, so he said nothing. He was just glad to soak up their presence, to breathe deeply even though it hurt a little to fill his lungs, because at least the pain meant that he was still alive. Then he noticed Magda peeking in from the doorway, and his heart flip-flopped in his chest.

“Hey,” she said softly when their eyes met. Coming further into the room, she smiled and said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Charles tried to smile back at her. “I’m glad I’m okay, too. Thanks for coming.”

“Someone had to drag Erik here. He was a wreck when he heard you’d been in an accident.”

Charles darted a glance at Erik. “Was he?”

“I was worried,” Erik muttered, looking away.

Charles’s heart fluttered in his chest. It was nothing, he told himself. Of course Erik was worried—friends worried about each other. He couldn’t read anything into it.

“I’m fine,” he said, aiming for a reassuring tone. “The doctor said my concussion wasn’t even that serious. I can go home as soon as they finish getting my test results.”

“And then you’re _staying_ home,” Kitty said sharply. “At least two weeks’ rest, that’s what Dr. Kim said.”

Charles opened his mouth to protest that his research couldn’t sit unattended for two weeks, that he was _so close_ to finishing the research portion of his thesis, but when Erik glowered at him, he said meekly, “Okay.”

“Good,” Kitty said decisively. “And you’re going to eat three meals a day and sleep at least nine hours every night, and you’re not allowed to touch anyone. Clear?”

“Eating, sleeping, not touching anyone,” Charles recited dutifully. “Sounds like a vacation.”

 

*

 

It was not a vacation, as it turned out. Having three regular meals a day was pleasant, as was napping whenever he felt like it, but he had an unconscious habit of touching people all the time and the resulting telepathy flares were painful to endure. He hadn’t realized how casual and necessary physical contact was to him until it was forbidden. For the first couple of days at home, he kept slipping up, placing a casual hand on Kitty’s shoulder in greeting, touching Azazel’s elbow to move him aside as he stepped past him in the narrow hall, leaning into Erik on the couch as they watched _A Christmas Story_. Each time, he jerked back with a yelp—even brief contact was enough to send a jumble of thoughts, words, images, and impressions trampling across his still-delicate shields, and it would be several painful minutes before he could patch his mental barriers back up to keep everyone else’s thoughts out.

On day three, Erik came home bearing a gift. “Here,” he said, tossing a pair of black gloves at Charles, who was curled up on the couch watching Daredevil. “That should help a little, right?”

Shoring up his shields a little further just to make extra sure Erik’s mind didn’t touch his, Charles picked the gloves up dubiously. “Maybe a little. Skin-to-skin contact is worse, that’s true, but I can hardly stand to even touch anyone through their clothes. I don’t think a pair of gloves will help very much.”

“Well at least they’ll keep your hands warm. You’re always freezing.” When Charles only stared at him, Erik held out his hand impatiently. “If you don’t want them, then give them back.”

“All right, all right, no need to get huffy about it.”

Slipping them on, he was surprised at how comfortable they were: soft and thick and warm. A quiet thrill shot through him—Erik had noticed how his hands tended to get cold, and Erik had bought him lovely gloves that fit perfectly. Erik had _thought_ of him.

“Thank you,” he said, genuinely touched.

Erik shrugged and moved toward the kitchen. “It’s nothing. What are you doing for dinner?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what’s in the fridge.”

Erik huffed. “What did you have for lunch?”

“The rest of the ramen.” When Erik frowned at him, Charles threw up his hands. “There was literally nothing else in the pantry, and I’m on house arrest, remember?”

“Okay, fine. Magda and I are getting dinner and we’ll bring you something.”

As quickly as Charles’s mood had lifted at Erik’s gift, now it soured. He tried not to let it, but it was hopeless: every time Erik mentioned Magda, Charles’s stomach twisted in disappointment and jealousy. He ought to be happy, he told himself. Magda was smart and funny and perfect for Erik, and so long as Erik was happy, Charles should be happy. But knowing it in his head was one thing; telling his heart was another thing altogether. His heart was a stubborn asshole.

“Charles?”

“Yeah.” Forcing a smile, he stared hard at the TV. “Sounds good.”

Erik left a few minutes later, and Charles sat listlessly on the couch, hating that he couldn’t even bury himself in his work to forget that Erik was in love with someone else. Erik was in love with Magda Eisenhardt and they were probably secretly dating and they were going to kiss and get married and move in together and have a million babies and live happily ever after, while Charles stood to the side and smiled and pretended he was happy about it all even though his heart was breaking in half.

He hated the idea. He hated even more that he was sitting here moping, because that wasn’t him. He wasn’t _maudlin_ …except apparently when it came to Erik. Erik seemed to be the exception to most of Charles’s rules.

Heaving a sigh, he got up from the couch and went to poke around in his room for a book to read. Most of his bookshelf consisted of scientific journals and textbooks, but there were a few other books he’d filched from Raven or other friends over the years. Grabbing one at random, he flopped down onto his bed and opened it up to the first page.

Thirty minutes later, he woke up to Erik banging on his door. “Charles, are you in there? We brought dinner, come on.”

“It’s Chinese!” Magda called.  

Charles buried his face in his pillow. “I’m asleep!”

Erik kept knocking. “You have to eat. Doctor’s orders.” When Charles didn’t answer for a long moment, he added, “You aren’t naked, are you? We’re coming in.”

Charles barely had time to sit up before they were barging in, a bag of Chinese takeout in hand. He had to admit, it smelled delicious, but it was difficult to concentrate on that when Erik and Magda were whispering something to each other and laughing, shoving elbows as they came in.

Finally Magda turned to him and beamed. “How are you feeling? You’re looking a lot better.”

Charles shrugged, studiously avoiding her eyes. “I’m okay. Slept a lot.”

“Well I hope you’re hungry. We bought you enough for two people.”

“You’ll eat it all,” Erik said sternly, unpacking a carton and handing him a plastic-wrapped fork.

It was only when the heavenly smell of chow mein and Beijing beef wafted out from the container that Charles realized how hungry he really was. Reaching greedily for the carton, he dragged it into his lap and struggled for a moment to tear the fork from its wrapper with his uninjured hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, licking his lips, “I’m _starving_.”

“Good.” Erik looked pleased. “I know you like kung pao chicken better, but they were out so I got your second favorite.”

Charles inhaled deeply, his stomach growling. “This is fine, thank you.” Glancing at Magda, he made himself say, “Thank you, too.”

Magda smiled. “No problem.”

There. He could be perfectly pleasant with her. Satisfied, he dug into his food as Magda told him all about her journalism classes and what she was currently interested in (the Arab-Israeli conflict) and how she hoped to get hired on by a local paper when she graduated, a stepping stone to her ultimate dream: writing for the BBC.

“Ambitious,” Charles remarked.

Magda grinned. “Well, you can’t get anywhere without ambition, can you?”

“True,” Charles admitted. He was faintly irritated to find that he liked her. “How’s your Hebrew? I heard you were learning from Erik’s mother.”

Magda’s eyes lit up, and she darted a quick glance at Erik before saying, “It’s great! You wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to learn Hebrew from a native speaker than from the Internet.”

“They Skype all the time,” Erik said, rolling his eyes. “They Skype more than I do.”

Magda laughed. “Your mother said the same thing. She misses you, you know.” Her eyebrows jumped up. “Oh! And she wanted me to remind you not to forget to bring back her Lord of the Rings DVDs. We’re going to marathon them over the break together.”

Charles stared at her. “You’re…spending the break with Erik’s mother?”

“She invited me over for Hanukkah,” Magda said, smiling. “My family’s going to be in Israel, so it was really nice of her.”

And of course Erik would be there, too, Erik always went home on breaks. Charles couldn’t swallow the helpless surge of jealousy that clawed up his throat. He had known Erik for two years, and not once had he invited Charles back to his place for the holidays, even though he knew that Charles never went home because of his asshole of a stepfather. Not once had Erik even asked if Charles might be lonely with no one else around for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Christmas.

But that didn’t matter—none of that mattered because Erik was happy. Erik and Magda were happy, and that was what was important. He tried to cling to the thought, but all he could think was that he was suddenly, horribly tired and he had a headache and he wanted desperately to be alone.

“Charles?”

It was Erik, looking at him with gentle concern, and Charles felt something snap inside him. Fists clenched, he gritted out, “Please leave.”

“What?”

“I said, please leave.”

Erik stared at him, alarmed. “Charles, are you okay?”

 _No!_ he wanted to shout. _No, I’m not okay_ — _I love you but you don’t love me back, and it’s the most awful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, so please, just take your girlfriend and go!_

Staring hard at the food in his lap, he said instead, his voice coming out admirably steady, “I think I might be getting a little overloaded, so it’d probably be best if you both left.”

“Oh!” Magda leaped up. “I’m so sorry, were we thinking too loudly?”

“Yeah, a little,” he lied. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit touchy these days, I’m afraid.”  

“No problem!” She grabbed Erik’s arm and tugged him toward the door. “Come on, let’s let Charles get some rest.”

Erik resisted for a moment. “Do you need anything?” he asked, twisting back to look at Charles. “Some water or Ibuprofen maybe?”

Charles thumped his head back against the headboard and closed his eyes. “Just close the door please.”

A moment later he heard the door shut. The sudden silence didn’t make him feel any better, but at least he could drop the mask and sink wearily down into his pillows, wishing he could just stop acting like this, stop _feeling_ like this. It was silly, that’s what it was. It was juvenile and useless to be jealous, and he didn’t like that he disliked Magda purely because he wished he were in her place. That wasn’t him, or at least that wasn’t the person he wanted to be.

Closing the carton of half-eaten Chinese, he set it on the nightstand and crawled under the covers. Even though it was hardly eight, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to just go to bed now. At least then he could stop thinking.

But he had hardly closed his eyes when the door burst open again. Startled, he sat up to find Erik standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowed and determination fairly radiating off of him.

“Okay,” Erik said, “you’ve been weird for a while now, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

“W—what?” Charles stammered.

Erik stepped in and shut the door. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong—”

“Don’t,” Erik cut in sharply. “Don’t lie to my face. You’ve been avoiding me for weeks. You haven’t been answering my texts, you never want to hang out anymore, you’re always weird and awkward when I try to talk to you. So what the hell did I do?”

“You didn’t _do_ anything,” Charles protested. It was half-true—Erik didn’t _choose_ to fall in love. Charles couldn’t fault him for that.

“Then why are you acting like this? Just now, with Magda—that was you acting weird. You weren’t getting overloaded, you just wanted us to leave. Why?”

Charles gaped at him, mouth half-open as he scrambled for a response. “What?” Erik said. “Surprised I knew? You’re a terrible liar. Besides, whenever you start to get overloaded, you go really pale and you look like you’re about to be sick.”

“You know what I look like when I’m overloading?” Charles asked weakly.

“Of course I do,” Erik harrumphed. “I’ve been keeping track of the signs ever since you got home from the hospital, just in case it ever gets really bad and I have to call 911. Dr. Kim told me to keep an eye out. But anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, something’s going on with you and you’re going to tell me what.”

Erik wasn’t going to let this go until he had answers, that much was obvious. That was just the way Erik was—bullheaded and determined and unyielding in all things. Charles considered continuing to play dumb, but what was the point? He was tired of putting on a smile and pretending everything was completely fine.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Charles sighed. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want things to get weird between us. Clearly that failed.”

“Clearly.”

“I just…” Charles bit his lip. “I don’t know how to say this.”

Erik’s jaw clenched for a moment, then unclenched again as he spoke. “Something happened the night of the party at Chase Landry’s house, didn’t it?”

Whatever he read in Charles’s expression answered that question well enough. Erik swore under his breath. “I knew it. I _knew_ it. That was when you started acting weird. What happened? What is something I did? Something I said?”

“Erik…” Charles took a deep breath, his heart fluttering in his chest. He forced his next words out through a lump in his throat: “You said you were in love with someone.”

Erik went pale. There was no surprise in his face though, only dismay and resignation. For a moment he simply stood there, fists clenched at his sides. Then he said with obvious difficulty, “That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

Charles smiled humorlessly. “I would have figured it out anyway. You haven’t exactly been subtle.”

“I haven’t?” Now Erik _was_ startled. “I thought...Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Like I said, I didn’t want things to get weird between us.”

Erik swallowed hard, his eyes dark and shuttered. “But things _have_ been weird. Have I...have I been making you uncomfortable?”

“Well…” There really wasn’t any way to sugar-coat it. Seeing Erik with Magda went several degrees beyond simply _uncomfortable._ “It hasn’t exactly been _pleasant_.”

Now Erik let out a breath as if Charles had sucker punched him. “I guess,” he said, his voice oddly strangled, “that means that you don’t feel the same way.”

The wave of hurt and rejection that buffeted up against Charles’s tender shields made him grit his teeth, in pain as well as in consternation. “What does _that_ mean?”

“It’s fine if you don’t,” Erik continued, in a hard tone just barely masking his hurt. “I thought you probably didn’t, or else something would’ve happened by now. We’ve known each other for two years and you’ve never….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I thought I was hiding it better. I didn’t know it was making you uncomfortable, or I would’ve...I don’t know, tried to stop or something.”

“What on _earth_ are you going on about?” Charles demanded. None of this was making any sense.

“I’m talking about having feelings for you!” Erik snapped. “At least do me the courtesy of keeping up, Charles.”

“You—” Charles spluttered, feeling suddenly very faint. “You have _feelings for me?”_

Erik stopped dead, bafflement written all over his face. “What the fuck have we been talking about this whole time?”

“We were talking about your feelings for Magda! You’re in love with her!”

“ _What?”_ Erik stared at him as if he’d jumped up on his desk and started spouting Hellfire propaganda. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not in love with Magda. She’s my friend, and besides, she already has a boyfriend. Why would I be in love with her?”

Charles’s head spun. “Because,” he said desperately, “because she’s smart and sweet and nice, and you’re always spending time with her. Plus your mother loves her, and she’s going home with you for Hanukkah!”

“We’re _friends_ ,” Erik said in exasperation. “I didn’t even invite her over, my mother did. Yeah, she’s smart and sweet and nice, but I’m not in love with her. I’m in love with _you_.”

For a long moment, Charles could do nothing but gape at him, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He must have heard wrong. He must have misunderstood something because Erik had just said that he was in love with him and that couldn’t be right, Erik was in love with Magda, all the evidence had said so—and yet—

All the clues cycled through his mind again in quick succession. He began to realize with growing incredulity that Erik had never actually _said_ he was in love with Magda, had never even touched her hand or discreetly tried to steal a kiss, had never treated her much different than he treated any of his other close friends. Charles had put the whole case together in his head, built it on a hasty assumption, and now it all collapsed, like a building toppling in a tremendous crash that sent shockwaves through the earth.

Erik wasn’t in love with Magda. Erik was in love with _Charles_.

“Oh,” he said weakly. “I’m an idiot.”

“You thought this whole time that I was in love with Magda?” Erik demanded. “That’s why you were acting so weird?”

“I was jealous,” Charles admitted, feeling spectacularly stupid.

When he looked up, Erik’s eyes were filled with hope. “Does that mean…”

Heart galloping in his chest, Charles clenched his hands in his comforter, holding onto it for dear life. “Yes,” he said, his throat tight. “God, Erik, haven’t you known? I’ve been in love with you practically since the day we met.”

They just stared at each other for a long, breathless moment. Then Erik was clambering onto his bed, reaching for him, his eyes wild, and Charles reached back, his breath trapped in his chest, so eager to touch and know that he completely forgot that they weren’t supposed to touch at all. The moment Erik’s fingers grazed his cheek, all of Erik’s amazement and shock and apprehension and relief and giddy joy flooded through the point of contact, and Charles recoiled as pain stabbed through his temples, hot and blinding.

“Oh shit!” Erik scrambled back. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry, I forgot, I didn’t mean to—are you okay?”

“Fine,” Charles gritted out, even though he was doubled over, his head on his knees. “Just...give me a moment.”

He fought to restore his shields, but Erik’s mind was deafening in its proximity, a thousand fractured thoughts and impressions and emotions clamoring up against Charles’s own. After a long, pained moment, Charles managed, “I really, really don’t want you to go, but you’re thinking really loudly and I think I need you to leave for a minute.”

“Yeah, of course, anything.”

The bed dipped as Erik scrambled back off of it and toward the door. Once he was in the hallway, the chaos of his mind dimmed enough that Charles could patch up his shields, piecing them together bit by bit until the thunderous noise of the outside world receded, quieted to a manageable murmur in the background.

Once he was sure he could stand, he slid out of bed and hurried to the hall. Erik was hovering just outside, his brow creased in concern. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“I’m fine,” Charles assured him. He wanted desperately to reach up and smooth away the frown lines on Erik’s forehead. He wanted even more desperately to yank Erik forward into a kiss, to finally be able to know what Erik tasted like. To have Erik so close, to know Erik would be _totally okay_ with Charles kissing him, and to not be able to do exactly that was a unique kind of hell. It was nearly enough to make Charles scream in frustration.

Erik swallowed, looking as if he were barely restraining himself from lunging at Charles again. “You won’t be better for another week, if what Dr. Kim said was right.”

Charles nodded miserably. “At least.”

“Well.” Erik ground his teeth together, his brows knitting with frustration. “This really fucking sucks because I don’t want to wait a week to kiss you.”

Erik wanted to _kiss_ him. Charles felt lightheaded at the very idea of it. The real thing would probably make his knees buckle.

“We’ve waited this long already,” he said breathlessly. “We can wait another week, right?” Surely.

Impatience flashed briefly across Erik’s face before he mastered it. “Yeah,” he said with obvious reluctance. “It’s only a week.” When he met Charles’s eyes, the heat in his gaze nearly melted Charles’s bones. “And then I’m going to kiss you so fucking thoroughly you’ll forget your own name.”

Charles laughed for sheer delight and didn’t even bother to pretend that Erik’s promise didn’t sent a shiver of arousal down his spine. Stepping as close as he dared without touching, he leaned up and whispered in Erik’s ear, “I can’t wait.”

 

*

 

It was, without a doubt, the longest week of Erik’s life. He had never been a very patient person to begin with, and now, with Charles walking around like temptation incarnate, Erik came up against the very limits of his self-control. The awkwardness that had thickened between them over the last few weeks vanished, replaced by sly glances and shared lunches and absurdly long text conversations. Erik took to coming home as often as he could, opting to study in the living room instead of at the library, choosing to eat in at home instead of out. Charles, who was going stir-crazy cooped up in the house as he was, seemed to appreciate it enormously.

“You’re the best,” he cooed happily when Erik came home on Wednesday evening with Thai food. “The best boyfriend.”

Erik stopped dead at that. “Boyfriend?”

Hands stilling on the cartons of food, Charles smiled a bit uncertainly. “Is that all right? I mean, that’s what we are now, isn’t it?”

Erik’s head actually spun a little. “Yeah...yeah, I guess so.” _Boyfriend_. He really, _really_ liked the sound of that.

As they settled in at the kitchen table, Charles said, “I’m getting better. Really, I feel almost normal again.” He put his hand on the table, a few inches away from Erik’s. “I want to try something after dinner. If it’s okay with you, of course.”

Erik bit his lip to keep from shouting an enthusiastic, _“Yes!”_ Charles’s health first, he reminded himself sternly. Everything else was secondary to that.

“It’s only been four days,” he pointed out. “Shouldn’t we wait the full week just to be safe?”

“I’m tired of waiting,” Charles said impatiently. “I’ve been staring at your mouth for four days, and I really, really want to kiss it. My shields should be strong enough by now to keep everything contained.”

“ _Should be_ ,” Erik echoed skeptically.

“They feel like it,” Charles countered. He frowned, giving Erik a deliberate, wide-eyed look. “Or don’t you trust me?”

Rolling his eyes, Erik snatched one of the cartons of pad thai from the bag and shook his head.  “That’s not going to work on me.”

“What?” Charles asked innocently.

“I’ve known you for two years,” Erik said, flopping down on the couch and pulling the TV remote to his hand with his powers. “I know when you’re lying.”

“I’m not _lying_.”

“Stretching the truth then.”

Charles harrumphed and slid down to sit beside him, settling his own carton of pad thai in his lap. There was a good foot of space left between them, and Erik made a conscious effort not to lean toward Charles. Once Charles was totally better, he told himself. Then they could do whatever the hell they wanted. But until then, he wasn’t risking anything.

Charles gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You know, you don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass.”

“You worked so hard you overloaded yourself and passed out,” Erik pointed out flatly. “You got hit by a _car_.”

“But I’m better now!” Charles held up his sprained wrist, which was wrapped up in a black brace. “My wrist doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” Erik said stubbornly.

Charles made a frustrated noise and sat back, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “You’re such a stickler.”

“Well excuse _me_ if I don’t want to be the reason my boyfriend gets overloaded and knocks himself out again.”

Charles was silent for a long moment. When Erik looked over, he found Charles smiling stupidly at him, his eyes warm and pleased. Erik frowned. “What?”

‘“Boyfriend,”’ Charles repeated. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

The next morning, Magda cornered Erik before Advanced Mutant Lit, grinning. “So how’s it going, Lover Boy?”

He shoved her shoulder lightly. “Don’t _call_ me that. And it’s going fine. Sort of.”

“Wow. It’s been four days and you already sound completely unconvinced. Fastest get-together and break-up turnaround ever.”

“We’re not breaking up,” Erik said, exasperated. “It’s just hard to keep doing this. Being around each other and not being able to touch, you know?” He wasn’t a very tactile person himself, but Charles most certainly was. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for him, to be shut up in the house for days on end with strict orders not to touch anybody.

They started walking toward class, slowly because they still had ten minutes to kill. “How’s he feeling?” Magda asked, her thumbs hooked through the straps of her backpack. “Once he’s all better, then you can touch him all you want, right?” She paused and scrunched up her nose in disgust. “I just imagined the two of you fucking like bunnies, and that’s a mental image I never, ever needed to have, ever. Someone get me brain bleach.”

Erik huffed a laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t know how fast Charles wants to go.” Erik had absolutely no problem jumping straight to sex—in fact, he was kind of hoping for it because all of his fantasies in the last two years had involved Charles in some way, shape, or form—but he’d take this at whatever pace Charles wanted. They hadn’t really talked about it yet.

“Whatever happens, I don’t want to hear about it,” Magda said, flashing him a severe look. “I _really_ don’t need to know. Except general details. General details are okay.”

“When something happens, you’ll be the first to know,” Erik said dryly.

After class, they stopped to get coffee and then split at the end of the block, Magda to go to the library to work on a research paper, Erik to head home. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, waving as they parted. “Don’t forget you promised to read over my paper when I’m done.”

Erik waved back and waited for her to disappear around the corner before hurrying home, a skip in his step. Two more days, he thought, anticipation smoldering hot in his belly. Two more days and they would know for sure Charles was probably safe and Erik would press him up against the wall and kiss the life out of him. He was already planning it in his head, planning what he’d say and how he’d move first and exactly the way he’d push Charles against the wall so he could watch those blue eyes widen in surprise and arousal. His breath quickened just thinking about it.

Unlocking the front door with a flick of his hand, he stepped inside and started to shed his coat. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the blur coming at him until it was too late: hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pushed him back against the door, and then he was being kissed, hard and fierce and clumsy. For a moment, he just froze in place, too shocked to react. Then he realized that Charles was touching him, Charles was _kissing_ him, and he grabbed Charles’s face and pulled him closer, closer and closer until they were drinking each other’s air and gasping into each other’s mouths, Charles’s tongue in his mouth, Charles’s teeth clacking painfully against his own.

“I am _literally_ going to barf.”

Charles yanked back with a huge gulp for air, his hair mussed and his eyes wild. “Oh shove off, Kitty,” he said breathlessly, his eyes fixed on Erik’s face unwaveringly.

“You’re being gross _in the hallway_ ,” Kitty complained from somewhere behind Charles; Erik was, at the moment, too preoccupied with staring down at Charles’s gleaming eyes and his spit-shiny lips to really take notice. “It’s bad enough that the two of you are a thing now, can you at least _get a room?”_

Before Erik could say anything, Charles seized his arm and dragged him upstairs. Once they’d slammed the door to Charles’s room shut behind them, Charles pounced again, his mouth wet and eager against Erik’s own.

“How—” Erik gasped between kisses. “Are you feeling—I mean, can you—is it okay if we do this—”

“More than okay,” Charles reassured him, kissing his mouth again and then his jaw. “I feel amazing.”

Still Erik twisted his head away, holding Charles back with a hand on his chest. “Are you sure? Not that I’m complaining but—you know, just in case—”

“I tested with Kitty earlier.” At Erik’s baffled look, Charles backed up a step and ran a hand through his mussed up hair. “I was pretty sure I was all better, and earlier Kitty and I tested it by shaking hands and hugging and everything. So if you wanted…”

Erik’s throat stuck for a moment. He had to stop and clear it before he could speak. “If I wanted what?”

Charles smiled. “Don’t play dumb. You know what I want. The question is, what do _you_ want?”

It took serious effort not to just grab Charles and drag him over to the bed. Erik’s fingers itched to peel Charles out of his cardigan and his undershirt and those sinfully well-fitting jeans, the ones that showed off Charles’s ass like framed artwork in a museum. He tried to breathe evenly through his nose and said, “I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I want, but if you want to take it slow—”

The rest of his sentence was lost when Charles kissed him again and pushed him back toward the bed, grinning when the backs of Erik’s knees hit the mattress and they both toppled down onto it. For a few long seconds, all Erik could do was just lay there, momentarily stunned at how beautiful Charles was, bright-eyed and smiling and entirely too pleased with himself as he straddled Erik’s hips. Running his hands up under Erik’s shirt, he murmured, “I’ve been wanting to do this forever, you know.”

Raising his hands to grip Charles's thighs, Erik breathed as steadily as he could through his nose. “Then what are you waiting for?”

Grinning, Charles rolled his hips slightly, deliberately grinding against Erik’s groin. When that elicited a moan, he laughed with delight and bent over, bracketing Erik’s head with his arms. “Nothing now,” he said, the air between them hot with fierce affection. “Nothing at all.”


End file.
